Given the cost of petrol and how little time we all have these days, I can appreciate the supreme efficiency of Zuma superfan Srini Naidoo trying to arrest Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday.
In case you don’t know the story, perhaps because you don’t follow the failures of minuscule, completely insignificant organisations, it goes like this.
For a couple of years, Naidoo has headed something called Real Democracy, described in some news reports as a “civil rights organisation”.
Given that this organisation seems to consists of little more than Naidoo and his Twitter account, I can understand why some people might be sceptical of its bona fides. But I can assure you that it is very much dedicated to defending civil rights, as long as you believe that Covid vaccines are lethal, the world is ruled by a diabolical cabal of Illuminati and Jewish financiers, you are homophobic and misogynist, or your name is Jacob Zuma.
Of course, the Venn diagram where anti-Semitism, anti-vax mania, seething misogyny and distrust of expertise meet, is now depressingly familiar to all of us. Once, I might have wondered how stupid or wilfully ignorant someone might have to be to republish, as Naidoo has done, a tweet by a pro-Russia trans- and homophobe, bewailing what happens “when LGBTI groups govern a country” (Spoiler alert: “God brings disaster to them”). No longer.
Where many defenders of Zuma are content to sit in their armchairs or bot farms, Naidoo is getting out there, last year publicly accusing Bheki Cele of being involved in corruption and embezzlement to the tune of R1bn.
In his defence, however, Naidoo at least puts his money where his mouth is, or at least pays for the petrol to get to where his mouth is.
Where many defenders of Zuma are content to sit in their armchairs or bot farms, Naidoo is getting out there, last year publicly accusing Bheki Cele of being involved in corruption and embezzlement to the tune of R1bn.
In June this year, likewise, Naidoo went a step further, laying a case of corruption against Ramaphosa and demanded that the case be investigated by none other than the International Criminal Court.
And on Tuesday he was ready to put his body on the line, or at least have his body politely ushered away from the VVIP section at the Slahla sports field outside Richmond, as he tried and failed to carry out a citizen’s arrest of Ramaphosa.
All of which brings me back to that admirable efficiency I mentioned at the beginning of this short essay.
Say what you want about Naidoo, but that is some pretty primo conservation of energy. With nothing more than 1,000 Twitter followers, he’s repeatedly made national headlines — well, page 5 headlines, halfway down the page — simply by being deeply committed to humiliating himself in public.
It’s pitiful, of course, but I have to admit that I also have grudging respect for the man. Debasing yourself for someone who cares so little about you is an act much more akin to devout faith than cynical politics; and I can’t help hoping that his piety pays off one day.
I mean, the least Nkandla could do is cover the man’s petrol, right?
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